How to get Dr. Ratio for free in Honkai: Star Rail

Genshin could never.

Dr. Ratio using his powers.
Image via HoYoverse

Honkai: Star Rail has been beyond generous from the start, but this gacha game is a gift that keeps giving with the best prize yet being a free premium five-star unit. All players can get Dr. Ratio for free, which is an opportunity you don’t want to miss.

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Premium five-star characters are usually very tough to obtain due to the brutal nature of the gacha system, but this is a one-time-only chance to get one of the best units yet for almost no effort at all. Here’s what you need to do to obtain Dr. Ratio for free in Honkai: Star Rail.

How to get Dr. Ratio in Honkai: Star Rail for free

To get Dr. Ratio for free in Honkai: Star Rail, all you have to do is log in sometime between the start of the second phase of Version 1.6 and the end of Version 2.1 and meet a couple of prerequisites to claim him from your mailbox.

  • Complete the Trailblaze Mission The Blue — A Moment of Peace.
  • Unlock the mailbox function.
The banner for a free Dr. Ratio.
This might be the only time we ever get a premium five-star for free. Image via HoYoverse

How to complete The Blue — A Moment of Peace in Honkai: Star Rail

The Blue — A Moment of Peace is the third part of the overarching Today Is Yesterday’s Tomorrow Trailblaze Mission. This quest takes place very early on in Honkai: Star Rail, so if you’ve been playing for a while, there’s a very good chance you’ve completed it.

To complete this quest, you need to:

  1. Finish Eye of the Storm to unlock this quest.
  2. Wait for the cutscene where you meet Himeko to end.
  3. Explore the area to find Asta.
  4. Wait though another cutscene.
  5. Use the Warp feature for the first time to recruit Asta.
  6. Track down Arlan to get Light Cones.
  7. Find other researchers in need of help.
    • Unlock the Travel Log feature by talking with Abraham.
    • Help Hinkel by telling him Up, Right, then Down.
  8. Return to Asta to finish the mission.

How to unlock the mailbox in Honkai: Star Rail

The mailbox feature unlocks naturally as you progress through the opening quests in Honkai: Star Rail. Just keep making your way through the main Trailblaze storyline plus all of the other quests and tasks you are given until it finally appears, which doesn’t take too long.

Dr. Ratio standing in front of his name.
He’s a dedicated single-target DPS. Image via HoYoverse

As long as the prerequisites are met and you log in during the specified time window, Dr. Ratio will be waiting in your mailbox to be claimed after his banner also launches on Jan. 17. Since he’s an exclusive five-star force, Dr. Ratio is among the best characters you can obtain in Honkai: Star Rail.

The second half of Version 1.6 starts on Jan. 17, but the end date for Version 2.1 hasn’t been announced just yet. If everything stays on schedule, Version 2.1 should start sometime around February or March. There has been some speculation among the community that Honkai: Star Rail is jumping straight to Version 2.0 after the end of 1.6 followed by 2.1 shortly after, but HoYoverse has not officially said whether this is accurate so far.

Based on usual patterns, the second half of 1.6 should run from Jan. 17 to Feb. 7, which would then see the next Version playing out across February. Because of this, it’s likely you have until at least the end of February to claim Dr. Ratio as a free character before this special gift comes to an end.

Author
Image of Kacee Fay
Kacee Fay
Staff Writer at Dot Esports covering new releases and a wide array of topics including Minecraft, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Phasmophobia, general gaming, streaming, and more. She has been avidly writing and gaming her whole life and now spends her time combining the two. Kacee graduated from San Diego State University in 2021 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and a Certificate in Creative Editing and Publishing. She then joined Dot Esports as a Freelance Writer in 2022 before transitioning to a Staff Writer in 2023. In her spare time, she enjoys buying more books than she can read, gaming alone or with friends, drinking too much tea, attending concerts, fangirling over movies and television, listening to music, and spending time with her family, friends, and pets, who are the most important parts of her world.